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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This week has been the worst of all. The west coast is engulfed in smoke and horrible air pollution from the worst wildfires in history. Climate change is here and it's catastrophic. We are now totally trapped in our homes by smoke and pollution. We can no longer pretend that there is even a semblance of our normal former lives out there in the world anymore. We can't go out into nature, we can't go to large inside gathering spaces (Malls, movie theaters) not if we value our health. We can no longer pretend that things aren't that bad. There are no longer any distractions that are not harmful or self-destructive. Everyday Donald Trump tells the blue states how much he hates us. If he wins again that will be the last nail in the coffin. If he doesn't win, that will be troublesome too as we will have to pry him out of the white house. It's as if whatever Higher Power you believe in has put out their hand like a big STOP sign in front of our faces and has said, "WAKE UP AND DEAL WITH THIS SHIT! Climate change is real, you are killing the planet and now she is fighting back with pandemics, fire, hurricanes etc! Also you have a dictatorial ass-hole in the White House and things are only going to get worse! (America has always had "honorable" men (not perfect) as president, now we know exactly how 3rd world countries with dictators feel.)
September 22, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
For the second Pandemic year we just celebrated Passover-for-two on Zoom, separated from other seder participants by distance and screen. Our dining room table was still overflowing with beautiful china and symbolic foods, but we couldn’t share our bounty because we were alone in our home, far from our family and friends. And yet, I still made charoses for a crowd. Charoses (or, the Sephardic pronunciation, “charoset”) is the apple-walnut-wine concoction which resembles the mortar of the bricks our forefathers had to use to build the pyramids in Egypt. The story is that the Jews were slaves in Egypt. Because we worked so hard to be free, we should live and work for the liberation of all people. My charoses is made with apples, walnuts, sweet kosher wine, cinnamon sugar, and nutmeg (my secret ingredient). I forgot to add honey this year. It was still terrifically delicious. It is always a patchke (pahtch-key) to make this Passover treat. The food processor and the counter around it end up covered in sticky apple juice drippings, requiring hot soapy water to fully clean the prep space. First I chop the walnuts and add them to the mixing bowl. Then I add apple to the spinning processor, about 2-3 apples at a time. Then, all of the cinnamon sugar in the house, plus a bit more, plus plenty of sweet kosher wine. Cover the bowl and shake it up, and let it sit in the fridge for a day before the seder meal. I’ll make some more today. Enough to last through the final days of this 8-day festival. This is a sweet treat through the 8 days of bleak, flat foods like matzo and other yeast-less products. Our private celebration of deliciousness in the dark days of pandemic plagues.
April 9, 2021